To successfully recover data and systems after a disaster, you must continually test your DR plan. Discovering a DR plan doesn’t work in the midst of a power outage or a cyberattack is every CIO’s nightmare.
Why Should You DR Test?
The purpose of IT disaster recovery testing is to discover flaws in a DR plan and resolve them quickly before anomalies and inconsistencies impact the ability to restore operations. Testing gives organizations time to fix problems before they have an real impact in a real DR scenario.
DR testing is critically important because it determines if your plan actually works. Strong testing also demonstrates whether or not predetermined Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) requirements can be met.
Many organizations forget to integrate new software and/or system upgrades into DR plans. Testing reveals any gaps in the complex interdependencies found in most environments. DR testing is critical to staying current in an IT world that’s constantly changing.
How Often Should You Test Your DR Plan?
If your business must be up and running within a week of a disaster, testing the DR plan once a year is most likely appropriate. If your requirement is two days of downtime after a disaster, testing twice a year is recommended. If one day of downtime is your limit, you should test once a quarter. And if your systems can’t be down at all, a more aggressive testing schedule is needed.
What Can You Do?
Many Recovery Point clients are automating testing with our next-level DR solution, Business Process Resilience (BPR). BPR gets your operations up and running after a disruption in hours, not days. We manage your entire resilience program from one platform, with monitoring and reporting provided at the server level so that you get the same level of service across all technologies and platforms without having to “rip and replace” any existing investments in data movers, DR replication engines or backup systems.
With BPR, automated testing occurs at least four times a year, which catches many issues before they become problems.
Benefits of Automated Testing
Automation avoids human error in application testing and executes checks faster. Other benefits include:
- Higher accuracy
- Better reporting capabilities
- Increased coverage
- Enhanced resource efficiency
- Improved bug detection
- Increased reusability
BPR Is Better
BPR restores business processes at the mission-critical application level, not just at the data and server levels like legacy DRaaS services. When you need the peace of mind that comes with Business Process Resilience, our SLA-based service is an economical solution that yields predictable results. Don’t delay, begin your BPR journey today. Call 877-445-4333 to get started.
By Chris Konkel, Product Director
